Cut to the Quick (22 page)

As they took off, they drove past the front of the station, where Lieutenant Beltran was having another press conference on the front steps.

“Beltran in the spotlight,” Vining said. “Our homicides again already?”

“No. You heard of that ex-con-turned-novelist Bowie Crowley?”

“Not another guy riding his criminal past to fame and fortune.”

“Something like that, except I have to admit that this Crowley has literary talent. I’m reading his book. It’s good. Last night, our guys arrested the father of the guy Crowley killed. He’s been stalking Crowley and threatened him at a book signing at Vroman’s. I think he’s already
out on bail, so I don’t know what Beltran has to talk about.”

“Probably likes his name being mentioned in the same breath as Bowie Crowley’s.”

NINETEEN

S
coville’s bookie
, Bennie Lusk, was not at the hair salon when Vining and Kissick stopped by. They suspected that he never was when cops came calling, slipping out a back door. The salon owner was a nice guy. He and Lusk had attended high school together thirty years ago. Wouldn’t admit that Lusk was a bookie. Said he sold art reproductions out of the back of the shop. The owner claimed not to recognize a photo of Scoville.

At the Municipal Courthouse in Van Nuys, the detectives photocopied records of the small-claims-court cases heard on July 29. Along with Huan Yu Kang’s case against his brother-in-law, another case heard that day was Alonso Mendoza versus Mark Scoville.

The detectives called Mendoza and learned that he had sued Scoville for the remaining two thousand dollars due on tile work he did in Scoville’s home. According to Mendoza, Scoville claimed the tiles were laid unevenly and there were color variations in the materials.

Mendoza brought photos of the finished job to court.
He won his case. A few weeks later, he received a check for the balance due from Dena Hale.

The small-claims-court records proved that Scoville was at the same place the same day that Huan Yu Kang’s cell phone was stolen. Three days later, August 1, someone used Kang’s stolen cell phone to call Scoville and conduct a sixteen-minute conversation.

While Vining and Kissick were out, Caspers called to say he’d gotten ahold of his buddy with the Las Vegas P.D. The buddy had a buddy in security at the Wynn hotel who was familiar with Scoville. Said he was a high roller, throwing down five figures at a pop.

By early afternoon, Kissick was finally able to sit down with two Cupid’s hot dogs. Vining joined him at an outdoor table in front of the hot-dog stand with a tuna salad sandwich from a nearby deli.

He bit into his hot dog, shedding sauerkraut and relish from the overburdened bun onto the wrapper. He wiped his mouth with a napkin.

“You missed some mustard.”

He passed the napkin over his face again.

She rubbed the errant yellow blob off with her thumb.

He watched her as she pulled her hand away. “Thank you.”

She picked up her sandwich. “You’re welcome.”

Her cell phone rang. It was Doug Sproul at the PPD, calling with the results of the criminal background checks he’d run on the thirty-two people who’d had cases in the Van Nuys small-claims court on July 29, the day Scoville was there.

“I turned up five with criminal histories, two females and three males. We’ve got DUIs, domestic violence, vandalism, drug possession, and one nice guy was busted for armed robbery and aggravated assault. I’ll do a more thorough rundown on the males. AT&T got back with
the cell site data on the August first call made to Scoville on Kang’s phone. It originated from the vicinity of Niland, California.”

“Originated from Niland?” Vining said for Kissick’s benefit. “Where’s that?”

“Turns out it’s some burg on the eastern shore of the Salton Sea. Got a population of about eleven hundred people, mostly Hispanic. About fifteen percent are unemployed.”

“The Salton Sea?” Vining repeated. “Isn’t that out past Palm Springs?”

Kissick said, “It’s a good hour and a half southeast of Palm Springs, out in the desert. Very strange place.”

Holding the phone squeezed between her jaw and shoulder, Vining looked through photocopies of the July 29 small-claims-court cases. “Niland, Niland … aha. Defendant Connie Jenkins of Jenkins’s Stop ’N Go Market, Niland, California. Plaintiff: Top-Notch Vending.”

She read the plaintiff’s description of the complaint. “ ‘Defendant owes me the sum of eleven hundred dollars and eighty-eight cents for product stocked in a cigarette machine at her business.’ Says that Jenkins lost the case. Doug, can you run a DMV on her?” She gave the detective Jenkins’s address.

She ate her sandwich while Sproul pulled the records.

Kissick had finished both hot dogs and was scooping up the dropped condiments with a plastic fork. He chased it with the last of a large Pepsi while he reviewed the court documents.

Sproul came back on the line. “Connie Jenkins is seventy-four years old. Five feet tall. Ninety pounds. Gray over brown. Has a Niland home address. In her DMV photo, she looks like a white-haired grandma. I’ll run her through NCIC and call you back.”

“She’s seventy-four,” Vining told Kissick. “Why would
a seventy-four-year-old woman who lives near the Salton Sea call Mark Scoville on a stolen cell phone?”

After a while, Sproul reported back. “No criminal history. Owns Jenkins’s Stop ’N Go and a couple of other properties in Niland. Got a six-year-old Saturn vehicle registered to her. Looks like a businesswoman and a citizen.”

“Thanks, Doug.” Vining ended the call. She said to Kissick, “How long to drive to the Salton Sea? Three to four hours?”

“Probably, given the time of day.”

“I bet Connie Jenkins didn’t drive herself to the Van Nuys courthouse. My grandmother wouldn’t drive that far alone.”

Kissick balled up the hot dog wrappers, got up, and shoved them and the empty drink cup into the garbage. “We could call her, pretend we’re from Top-Notch Vending or something, but we have to be careful not to raise her or anyone else’s suspicions. These calls made to Scoville on stolen cell phones are the first solid leads we have that he’s hiding something. I don’t want to blow it.”

“Let’s show Kang her DMV photo. See if he remembers seeing Jenkins at the courthouse and if he recalls her being with anyone. A tiny old lady in the company of a transvestite would stand out.”

“Then let’s take a drive out to Niland. See who’s around, run some license plates. How many transvestites could they have there?”

“Mark Scoville’s office is just over the hill. Let’s pay him a visit right now.”

“We can drive to Niland after,” Kissick said. “Traffic will be better then anyway. We need to change into more casual clothes too. Get another vehicle.”

Vining put on her sunglasses. They were sitting outside and Kissick was already wearing his. She put hers
on because she was about to tell him a lie. “Can’t go to Niland today. I have a doctor’s appointment later. I’ve already rescheduled it once.”

“Oh.”

She saw his concern. If he was any other coworker, he’d let it go. He asked the follow-up question, showing that he was not just any other coworker.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. It’s routine.”

“Maybe I’ll take a drive to Niland anyway.”

“Not by yourself.”

He got up. “I’ll touch base with the local law. That would be, what? Imperial County sheriffs?”

“Sounds about right.” She got up too and headed toward the car. She hated lying to Kissick, who was not only her partner but her friend. She’d also lied to Sergeant Early about the bogus doctor’s appointment. She’d booked a flight to Tucson. Lieutenant Donahue had agreed to wait for her that evening to go over the Johnna Alwin case. T. B. Mann had upped the ante. She would match him.

TWENTY

V
ining and
Kissick found parking on Sunset near Scoville’s office. They first walked across the street and down the block to Chin Chin, the restaurant where Abby Gilmore, the tourist from Ohio, had had the conversation
with “Jill,” whom she believed stole her cell phone.

Lunch was winding down, and the patrons, in $300 denim jeans, $200 T-shirts, and everyone looking rumpled, were migrating from their sidewalk tables into high-end vehicles without missing a conversational beat on their cell phones.

Kissick nudged Vining as they passed beneath a billboard advertising Chanel handbags that had a Marquis plaque on the bottom.

The Strip’s buildings were lower than one might expect, one and two stories. The older ones were rehabbed to look fresh, and the new ones had been built to look old, but fresh. Some of the designer boutiques didn’t carry women’s sizes larger than ten.

“Look what they did to Ben Frank’s.” Kissick pointed at Mel’s, a new diner designed to look mid-century. “Ben Frank’s was a classic,” he lamented. “Only in L.A. would they replace a genuine fifties-style joint with a fake fifties-style joint.”

At Chin Chin, they found a waiter who’d worked the patio on Labor Day. They asked him if he remembered a male patron who was dressed as a woman.

The waiter gave a dismissive shrug. “This is the Strip, man. Men dressed as women. Women dressed as men. Androids. Vulcans. Whatever floats your boat. There might have been a guy like that. Yeah, I think there was, but I couldn’t say I’d remember him if I saw him again.”

Vining and Kissick thanked him and moved past the outdoor tables to stand on the sidewalk.

“Abby said Jill was looking at hawks,” Kissick commented, peering through his compact binoculars. “I wonder if Jill was spying on Scoville. There’s a rooftop patio on top of his building.”

Vining had a look through Kissick’s binoculars and
tried to tune out two women who were sitting at a nearby table.

“He’s good-looking in the face but he’s fat. Is it mean to tell him?”

The Marquis building had smoked-glass windows. The baby blue paint needed updating.

“There he is,” Vining said. “Scoville’s on the roof, leaning against the wall. Holding a drink cup. Wonder what’s in it.”

Kissick said, “Mercer and Richards were murdered last Saturday by a cross-dresser. The following Monday, Jill the cross-dresser steals a cell phone to call Scoville. Maybe Jill was concluding business with him?”

Vining was rankled by the women diners’ conversation.

“I know body types. He’d look good if he worked out.”

“Let’s go.” Vining skirted around a man with dreadlocks interwoven with long metallic ribbons that trailed down his back.

They passed a bookstore with a large display of
Razored Soul
in the window.

“There’s your buddy. Hot stuff,” Vining commented, looking at Crowley’s beefcake publicity photo.

“Does he turn you on?”

She looked at him with raised eyebrows. “He’s not my type.”

“What is your type?”

“What is this heightened sex thing with you lately?”

“I don’t know. Life’s short.”

Her comment ended the discussion. “I already knew that.”

The receptionist in the first-floor lobby was young, attractive, and polished, and probably thought she was
skilled at keeping the world away from the inner sanctum of Marquis Outdoor Advertising.

Vining and Kissick didn’t pause as they sped past her, holding out their shields.

The defense the receptionist mounted consisted of her rising from her chair and exclaiming, “Hey!” at Vining’s and Kissick’s backs as they climbed the exposed stairway.

Whenever Vining was successful at such a tactic, she wondered why citizens weren’t better versed in their civil rights. Cops didn’t have unrestricted access to private property.

On the third floor, they encountered a man dispatched to intercept them. He was earnest and young, and had been given a thankless job for which he would undoubtedly get his ass chewed by Scoville when he botched it.

Shields still in hand, the detectives sailed past him as he sputtered that they were to wait downstairs.

“We’ll just be a minute,” Vining said reassuringly as they circled the suite, cruising the corner offices until they found Scoville in the largest one with the best view. They went inside, closing the door on the minion.

Scoville was yammering into the phone, “I don’t care if he’s in court. I need him
now
.” He stood when Vining and Kissick entered, slamming down the phone at the same time.

Vining put on her sweetest smile. “Hi, Mark. Howyadoin’?”

“You two can’t burst in here like this without a search warrant. This is private property. I need to see a warrant.”

Kissick took up his usual position, leaning against a wall. Vining had already turned on a microrecorder in her pocket.

“Search warrant?” Vining appeared bewildered. “We
just want to ask you some questions, Mark, not dig through your desk. We’re here to verify a few facts, that’s all. Will you help us do that?”

Scoville was neat and clean. His knit shirt bore the logo of the Wilshire Country Club on the breast. The creases on his chinos were knife-edged. His eyes were clear, the whites too bright, suggesting an application of Visine. His bearing was not as crisp. He grappled for words, and his movements were labored, suggesting he was either drunk or suffering from a powerful hangover.

Vining thought she detected alcohol behind the menthol aroma of the strong mints he was chewing. A drink cup with a lid and a straw was on his desk, the surface sweating condensation, leaving a ring on the coaster beneath it.

“I’m not talking to you without my attorney present,” Scoville protested. “How do I get you out of here? Do I have to call the sheriffs?”

Vining winced as if wounded. “Mark, I’m confused. When we chatted the other day, you offered to help in any way you could. You volunteered to take a polygraph and we set it up. Then, next thing we knew, you left a message canceling it. Wouldn’t take our calls. Didn’t want to see us. Now you want your attorney here. What’s changed?”

Scoville stood behind his desk as if it was a barrier.

“What’s changed is I was naïve about the police. How you guys operate. You’re desperate to hang those murders on somebody, and you’ll twist anything I say to do it. I have a family and a business to consider. Bringing in an attorney was my wife’s idea. She’s the one who opened my eyes to what you guys are capable of.”